The History Of
Joan Ferguson
Transferred to the staff of Wentworth Detention Centre after an apparently
exemplary term of service at Bognor Road jail in Queensland, Joan Ferguson
was a towering, thickset, dark-haired prison officer whose contribution to
the service could only be described as unique and inimitable. Without
delay she set about making her mark on her new domain, entering into the
procedure of cell-searches and clearly aware of the many ruses the women
run - she took no time in locating a false heel in one of Chrissie Lathams
shoes. She was quick to don her soon-to-be-infamous black leather gloves
in order to bully and body-search the dim-witted Doreen Burns: discovering
the women were running a book, the unscrupulous officer pocketed most of
the money for herself before forcing bookie Faye Quinn to provide her with
a regular cut.
Her attentions soon turned to the remand prisoner Hannah Simpson, and it
was Joans heroism in court that thwarted Hannahs attempted escape from
custody. Hannah was disgusted by Joans lesbian overtures, but Bea and the
others saw Joans sexuality as a possible chink in her armour, a means to
expose her rampant corruption. Further light was shed on the officers past
when inmate Maxine Daniels arrived at the prison: she had met The Bear
before, as Joan had been nicknamed in her old haunt. It transpired that
Miss Ferguson had fallen in love with an inmate, Audrey Forbes, who was
summarily murdered by her fellow prisoners when they learnt of her liaison
with the officer. It was this devastating blow that finally drove Joan to
cross the line from hard-working, disciplined upholder of prison rules to
the corrupt, wrathful figure that the women of Wentworth were so memorably
to nickname The Freak.
Joan soon came to realise that Hannah was incapable of taking Audreys
place, not least when she lodged a complaint of sexual harassment against
her. So she raised no objections when the inmate was transferred to
Barnhurst. By this time the officers reputation in Wentworth was ominously
established: having already fleeced Chrissie of a stash of loot following
a short-lived escape, Joan hammered home her malice by threatening to ruin
her custody battle for her beloved daughter Elizabeth. Joans subsequent
brutal assault (which she justified as self defence) on Chrissie raised
the governors suspicions that there was a lot more to her than met the
eye. On investigation, however, Joans track record in Queensland appeared
to be without fault, and she was automatically promoted to Senior Officer.
Determined to remove this new, menacing rival to her swaggering power, Top
Dog Bea Smith set about her plans to eject The Freak from Wentworth. The
women sent Joan to coventry, refusing to obey her orders whilst blithely
acceding to those of all the other officers. Events came to a head when
the women launched a protest in the garden: determined to prove just who
had the upper hand, a scornful Joan turned the hose-pipes on the women,
and the bedraggled inmates were herded unhappily back inside. They next
instigated a sit-in in the dining room, but when Lizzie Birdsworth took a
turn for the worse, Joan refused to let her out or fetch her medication -
unless Bea surrendered the protest. Appalled, Bea was forced to give in to
her nemesis, and Lizzie was rushed to hospital.
But not only the inmates were incensed by Joans harshness: officer Steve
Faulkner, who had initially been quite pally with Joan (she having backed
him against Chrissies fallacious rape allegation), now turned against her.
Moreover, Meg Morris had the opportunity, during a brief spell inside as
an inmate, to discover the extent of Joans corruption. Thus the officers
themselves set about plotting to expose their colleagues evil ways. Joan
faced problems from other quarters too, when she was suspected of being
the whore-killing psycho who polished off two ex-inmates: one of Joans
trademark leather gloves was found at the scene of Penny Seymours murder -
and Chrissie well recalled a previous occasion when Joan had forcefully
grabbed the inmate by her throat... But Chrissie herself was in deadly
peril when the real culprit turned out to be her current beau, prison
nurse Neil Murray - and Joan was of course her usual compassionate self: I
hear your boyfriend turned out to be a psycho! she gloated malevolently
after Chrissies narrow escape from death.
Meanwhile the officer-inmate plot to frame The Freak for supplying
contraband was only foiled at the eleventh hour when duplicitous embezzler
Barbara Fields lagged to Joan in an effort to save her own neck (the
officer having taken possession of some of her dubious financial
dealings). Departmental scandal was only alleviated by scapegoat Steves
resignation, but Joan was to face an even greater threat when Barbara
attempted to wriggle free from her clutches. An accomplice of the inmate
burgled Joans house, poisoning her dog and laying hands on her highly
incriminating diaries - which then fell into Barbaras blackmailing
possession...
For the first time an inmate had the upper hand over Joan, although in
Barbaras case the trump card was to prove a dead mans hand. Hostility
between Bea and Joan was ever-increasing, in particular since Joan
manhandled Lizzie in order to foil Margo Gaffneys planned escape from
Woodridge (Joans motives being to wreck the prison concert and thereby
discredit its organiser, Deputy Governor Colleen Powell). Tricked into
believing that Lizzie was dead, and constantly provoked by Margos
stirring, Bea faced the final straw when her own hopes of parole were
crushed by Joans less than exemplary references. Having played no part in
the womens daring attempt to gang up on Joan and club her to death, Bea
vowed to take on The Freak one-to-one. She used the promise of the diaries
to lure her to isolation, while Chrissie diverted attention with a fire in
the library. Never one to be outdone, the defiant Margo lit a fire of her
own - and had the misfortune to lob her Molotov cocktail into a storeroom
full of turpentine...
While Joan and Bea battled it out in the isolation block, a fire raged
through the lower prison: despite being almost choked to death by Bea,
Joan managed to fight back, brutally bashing her assailants head against
the corridor floor. However in her haste to find her diaries (which were
in fact concealed in the governors office, and did not survive the blaze),
she neglected the fact that she had dropped her keys: when the fire burnt
through the prisons electrical circuitry, the security gates automatically
slammed shut - leaving Joan trapped in the isolation block. Beas battered
body lay outside the gates - with Joans set of keys. The officer pleaded
vainly with Bea to help her, but the Top Dog was either too fatalistic or
concussed to pay much heed. At length inmate Paddy Lawson came to the
rescue, but she insisted that Joan drag Bea to safety. Joan grudgingly
conceded, but the only route out of the raging inferno was via the prison
roof - as she hauled Beas semi-conscious body up the ladder, Joan lost her
grip and plunged back into the prison...

Fortunately the emergency services had by this time prevailed, and Joans
body was laid on a stretcher and airlifted from the roof. Recovering in
hospital, with her neck in a brace, she wasted little time in accusing Bea
of trying to kill her - despite having promised Bea that no charges would
be pressed should they escape alive. She was soon back on duty at the
refurbished Wentworth, and her uncanny sixth sense alerted her to the fact
that the women had somehow gotten hold of alcohol to celebrate their
homecoming.
The women retaliated by devising their own version of Ericas doomed points
system: the officer who scored the most points would be dealt with - and
there were no guesses which screw headed the list. In response Joan set
about enforcing some of the lapsed prison regulations, preventing Lizzie
from wearing her (non-prison issue) cardigan, and insisting on the ban of
inmate-officer conversation. Wary of the new double-act of Bea and
Chrissie, Joan took it on herself to go over Ericas head and made a phone
call to Ted Douglas, resulting in Chrissies immediate shanghai to
Barnhurst. Erica was furious with Joan, but another issue had arisen: Meg
had failed to body-search social worker Barry Simmons, who had supplied
contraband cigarettes to Paddy. Meg bleakly offered her resignation - but
an adamant Bea threatened that if Meg left the prison, so would Joan, one
way or another...
The matter soon passed, and Bea was faced with a more immediate threat in
the shape of hardened killer Nola McKenzie. Awake to this new rival of her
hated foe, Joan first attempted to set the pair up in a fight in the
prison library before muscling in on Nolas various insurance and
contraband rackets. Bea was disgusted to discover an inmate actually
colluding with Joan, even more so when Maxine was roped into Nolas
dealings. Joan turned a blind eye as Maxines friend Roxanne Bradshaw
brazenly smuggled in goods during a visit. However a new inmate, Jill
Clarke, soon took an unsubtle interest in the dodgy deals at foot in the
jail: Joan discovered in the nick of time that she was in fact a
departmental spy, and Ted Douglas was happy to believe that his much-favoured
Miss Ferguson was quite innocent of any charges that Jill might have
mistakenly noted.
Joans smirk was wiped from her face when Bea managed to escape from the
prison disguised in her uniform; but with Nola as Top Dog Wentworth at
last looked set to run Joans way, not least when Erica was dismissed from
the governorship for her manifest inability to inspire any discipline in
her charges. With Teds encouragement, Joan applied for the post, alongside
Meg and Colleen, but all three officers were decidedly put out when
outsider Ann Reynolds was appointed as Wentworths new head. Keen to cement
her position, Joan pragmatically made herself as helpful as possible to
Ann, although it would not be long before the governor came to realise
that her most disciplined officer was also the least trustworthy.
It was around this time that Joans somewhat estranged father, Major
Ferguson, re-emerged into her life. Joan had always felt impelled to
follow in his footsteps, but her efforts to join the army had proven
fruitless. Thus she had had to settle on the prison service. Both father
and daughter had always been unable to express their love for each other,
and they parted once more on less than intimate terms - until a surprise
gift from the Major, a new puppy, broke the ice and reduced the sorrowful
Joan to tears.
The recapture of Bea soon spelt an end to Nolas reign, and she and Joan
set about their plan to eliminate her for good. Coercing the remand
prisoner and dubious psychic Zara Moonbeam into their plot, they laid
their deadly trap. Zara convinced Bea that her daughter Debbie was trying
to contact her from beyond the grave: Joan even went so far as tracing an
old school-friend of Debbie to uncover more details of her past. Beside
herself, Joan gloated maliciously at Beas escalating breakdown, and
prepared the final nail in the coffin: she gave Nola the tools to
construct a zip gun, with which Bea would commit suicide. Only Zaras
blabbing saved Beas skin: apprised of the truth behind the Debbie charade,
Bea lured Nola to her sickbed and shot her dead - an event that was not
however displeasing to Joan, given that it now secured Beas lifelong
imprisonment and also rid her of the decidedly uneasy alliance with the
callous Nola.
The next ordeal to face Joan was an allegation of sexual harassment laid
against her by embittered inmate Tracey Belman, a wheelchair-bound killer.
However it was Joans cunning threat of genuine harassment that finally
forced Tracey to overcome her paralysis, which Joan had rightly deduced to
be psychological and not physical. Another side to the officers character
was revealed when she became unwitting witness to a violent siege: she did
not get on very well with her neighbours the Coulsens, but even so it was
a shock when downtrodden wife Carol finally turned on her slobbish husband
and planted a knife in the back of his neck. Distraught, Carol threatened
to kill both herself and her young daughter Jilly, but Joans heroism saved
the day. Carol was inevitably detained at Wentworth; given her gratitude
towards the officer, the women were immediately suspicious that she was on
with Joan. In fact, the latter was able at last to give access to her
maternal nature, taking the troubled Jilly on outings to the zoo - but all
her efforts could not prevent the despairing Carol from hanging herself in
her cell.
The sudden arrival on her doorstep of errant niece Lucy caused Joan yet
more problems: not only did Lucy ill-treat Major (as Joan had named her
new dog), but she was revealed to be a drug peddler and invariably found
herself remanded to Wentworth. She threatened to make things difficult for
her Auntie Joan, who was impelled to organise her escape (plus that of
eavesdropping Maxine) in the back of the laundry van.
After a battle with the potentially fatal Lassa fever during the prison
quarantine, Joan found herself with another steely ally against the
dictatorship of Bea. New inmate Sonia Stevens proved immediately unpopular
when her track record of vice and drugs was revealed to the women. She
paid Joan to organise an escape, but determined to prove who was boss Joan
scuppered the break-out in front of the very eyes of Colleen. Forced to
accept an alliance with Joan (who was the brawn to her brain), Sonia
orchestrated grog and numbers rackets to gain a foothold in the prison.
Realising that her last effort to remove Bea had been a tad too ambitious,
Joan concurred with Sonia that a simple transfer would remove the onerous
obstacle. Hatchet-faced Phyllis Hunt was used as a pawn to provoke Bea
into hitting her - in front of Joans eager eyes. As the officer escorted
Bea to solitary, she could not resist telling her about the way things
were going to run from now on... Incensed beyond reason by Joans callous
reference to using drugs money to set up a fund in memory of Debbie, Bea
violently attacked her enemy. Bruised but not bloodied, Joan dragged
herself off to report the incident, but first tore open her own cheek with
her nails to add a little colour. Faced with this fresh evidence of Beas
uncontrollable behaviour, the authorities had no option but to ship her
off to Barnhurst.
With Smith gone, Joan might have looked forward to a period of triumph and
power, but instead new setbacks and traumas emerged: her puppet Top Dog
Sonia soon lost the womens support to Minnie Donovan; and when Joan set
out to punish screw-killer Cass Parker she was herself bashed by the
maddened inmate, suffering a fractured rib. Her alliance with Sonia turned
progressively sour, and with the backing of Brenda Hewitt, Sonia set about
blackmailing her, using an incriminating tape recording of her expounding
on her corrupt schemes.
The other inmates thoughtfully took Joans mind off these matters by
attempting to hang her: she narrowly avoided death, but almost instantly
discharged herself from hospital, desperate to pay-off her blackmailers.
However, Sonia and Brendas outside accomplice had made more than a few
enemies for himself, and was found dead before Joan had the chance to pay
up. This was not the end of her worries, however, as she received a visit
at home from a pair of Lionel Fellowes thugs, who force-fed her a tab of
LSD. Following a nightmarish trip (wherein Meg appeared in golden face
paint looking even ghastlier than usual) Joan came round to discover she
had committed an unspeakable act whilst under the influence of the drugs:
her dog Major was dead, fatally stabbed with a pair of scissors.
In a wild rage she turned the table on her blackmailers, trashing Brendas
cell and bashing her in solitary. Angered that this loose cannon was
upsetting his prison drug-supply, crime boss Fellowes decided that he
wanted Joan dead... but the ever resourceful officer managed to strike a
deal, convincing him that she could be a worthy ally for the future. Joans
misfortunes inside the prison continued as the canny Minnie stole her set
of keys. In order to avoid any charges of remissness on her part, Joan
persuaded Sonia to tie her up in the shower block, making it look as
though Minnie and Cass had taken her keys by force. She then furthered her
vengeance by poisoning Minnie in solitary and framing the slow-witted
Cass, and in order to sow yet more discord she persuaded Sonia to incite a
mini-riot in the rec room.
When Ann Reynolds was hospitalised for a mastectomy, Joan began to further
her power in the prison: following a rooftop protest by the women Meg was
demoted from Acting Deputy Governor and Joan set in her place. There
remained only one obstacle now, Acting Governor Colleen Powell, and fate
handed Joan a rare treat when she happened to witness an accident in which
Colleen ran down a man with her car... While Colleen was under
investigation, Joan finally achieved the Governorship, setting her seal by
turning up the prison heating to give the obstreperous women a makeshift
sauna. She gloatingly forced acting Top Dog Judy Bryant to clean her
shoes, but the advent of iconoclastic inmate Reb Kean put a pronounced
spoke in her wheel.
A visit to the prison by Joans proud father resulted in humiliation when
the women wilfully played up, and the calculating Reb cottoned on to her
soft spot for her daddy. The Major was kidnapped by accomplices of Reb,
who then demanded Joans complicity in her escape. A powerless Joan was
forced to comply, arranging for Reb to be sprung en route to a hospital
visit - but when the women learnt what was afoot, they took a hostage
themselves: Reb. They refused to let her out of their clutches, and a
desperate Joan was forced to make the ultimate sacrifice to ensure her
fathers safety: her resignation from the prison.
Rebs escape then went ahead, but Joan vengefully tracked down the
kidnappers, shooting one dead (none other than Rebs boyfriend Gary Wilder)
at her fathers side. A changed woman, Joan contritely paid a visit to the
recuperating Ann and implored her for reinstatement. Duly returning to
work as a plain officer once more, she sought to prove her new credentials
to the women, and seemed to have genuinely turned over a new leaf - until
the wrongly imprisoned Mo Maguire, ceaselessly antagonistic to one and
all, provoked her into reverting to type. Moreover, the revelation that
her father was suffering from leukaemia caused her loathing of Reb to
heighten still further, and she set about plotting her retribution.
On top of Reb, Joan faced a new bete noire when Myra Desmond was remanded
to Wentworth. Myra was disgusted to overhear Joans mockery of the by now
nervously wrecked Sonia; when Joan tried to dismiss Myras threat the angry
new inmate turned on her wildly, telling her in no uncertain terms never
to lay another finger on her. Joan thanked her perversely for giving her a
new lease of life, and was soon able to hit back when Myras late husbands
mistress Gloria Payne arrived inside. Determined to land Myra with as long
a sentence as possible, Joan ensured that Gloria should fall into her
clutches - Myra almost throttled the woman until Sonia convinced her that
she was playing into Joans hands.
Shortly afterwards Joan went on leave to visit her ailing father in
Sydney, where she was also able to pay her respects at the grave of her
murdered beloved, Audrey. She was at last able to speak fully about her
past to her father, whose respect for her only deepened. As luck would
have it, while strolling the streets of the city Joan came across none
other than escapee Bobbie Mitchell, whom she smugly apprehended. Bobbies
fellow escapee Sonia succeeded however in giving both Joan and her
gangland protector Kurt Renner the slip, but the capture of Bobbie was a
sufficient feather in Joans cap. She duly returned to Wentworth, only to
be featured in the tormented nightmares of holocaust survivor Hannah
Geldschmidt, where she appeared as a grim Nazi concentration camp officer.
But Joan was in fact unusually sympathetic to Hannahs plight, perhaps
recognising in her a fellow outsider from conformist society.
The departure of Colleen Powell from the prison (following the horrific
murder of her family) spelt new opportunity for Joan, but she was pipped
at the post by Meg, who became cosily ensconced as Anns Deputy. Joans
cause had been rather hindered by some less than flattering publicity
launched by one-time inmate and radio personality Camilla Wells, who
continued to represent the interests of the women from the outside. But a
new side to Joans character was to emerge when runaway waif Shane Munroe
turned up in her home. Seeking refuge from his drunk and physically
abusive father, Shane was taken under the ample wing of Auntie Joan, who
grew so attached to the boy that she set about seeking custody. Having
already suffered heartache when Shane almost drowned in a storm-water
drain, and another setback when Shanes father attempted to have her
charged with abduction, Joan was dealt a further blow when the courts
decided he should be fostered by the Tailor family.
But the return of hardened crim Marie Winter to her old home at Wentworth
provided Joan with an ally worthy of her guile and malevolence. Together
they plotted the downfall of Ann Reynolds, Marie taking advantage of Myras
escape and installing herself as Top Dog. With Joans secret assistance,
Marie staged a sudden, wild riot, and only the intervention of high-class
remand prisoner Leigh Templar saved Ann from dismissal. Thwarted in her
efforts to attain the governorship, Joan was promptly confronted by Marie,
determined to claim her side of the bargain. Threatening to get at Shane,
Marie forced Joan to organise a spectacular escape by helicopter from the
prison gardens. When later recaptured and sentenced to Blackmoor, Marie
tried to incriminate the officer in her dynamic escape; but by pulling a
few strings - care of her Blackmoor counterpart Cynthia Leach - Joan soon
had Maries claims silenced.
As a final favour to Joan prior to that escape, Marie had brutally bashed
lagger Reb Kean, for whom Joans hatred was unceasing (even when Rebs own
father died Joan could not resist bating her). But Reb named Joan as her
assailant, and the officer was suspended from duty until a (not altogether
willing) officers strike led to her reinstatement. Back at work, she faced
the usual commonplace obstacles: resentful young officer Heather Rodgers
colluded with the women to set her up for an alleged sexual assault on
Pixie Mason, only to be caught in her own trap and sacked by a disgusted
Mrs Reynolds. Joan was soon after stabbed in the stomach by psychotic
teenager Angel Adams, and almost fell to her death from the solitary
staircase after an attempt to avenge herself on Reb. However, these were
minor incidents compared to the arrival of a new and fearsome rival,
relief officer Len Murphy. His brutality made Joan seem tame by compare,
and the women rather enjoyed the prospect of playing them off against one
another. Len made no secret of his disgust for the dyke Ferguson; after
catching him about to rape Lou Kelly (for a second time), Joan battled it
out with the thuggish homophobe in the corridor. Forced into submission by
the physically overpowering Len, Joan was even more put out when her hated
rival stepped in as Acting Governor. But his come-uppance was due, and
when male inmate Frank Burke raped Pixie Mason, Joan uniquely conspired
with Myra to frame Len for the assault. At a time when forensic evidence
for rape was seemingly unheard of, Len was duly dismissed and convicted.
Further threats to her position, and indeed her life, never failed to
dismay Joan for long. She had coerced chef Ray Proctor to arrange an
accident for Reb in the kitchen. Ray was however unable to go through with
it, and Reb forced him to put his name to a letter incriminating Joan. But
Rebs cocaine-dealing (and the allergic reaction it produced in Marlene)
alienated Ray. When Reb impulsively slapped her in full view of the women,
Joan was able to have her troublesome scourge removed to Blackmoor.
Shortly after, Joan survived an attempted murder (thanks only to the
faultiness of a zip gun) at the hands of rising trouble-maker Lou Kelly.
Joan later scored revenge when Lou attempted to poison hapless lagger
Janice Grant: Lou was forced to eat the poisoned soup herself.
On a more positive note, Joan had once again proven her forthrightness and
valour not only by coming to the rescue of handyman Stan Dobson when he
suffered a heart attack in the prison grounds, but also by saving guest
male inmates Geoff Macrae and Matt Delaney from a poison gas attack in
their cell. She was however still sufficiently unpopular with her
colleagues to lose out the post of union rep to pommie whinger Dennis
Cruikshank. But a sudden summons to her fathers hospital bed confirmed the
worst: his leukaemia was now terminal, and he passed away before her
grieving eyes. To add to her troubles, Shane had run away from his
foster-parents and turned up hoping to restart his life with Auntie Joan.
Realising he was better off with the Tailors, she was forced to turn him
away and face a life without both father and surrogate son. She did
however commission artistically-inclined inmate Sam Greenway to paint a
touching picture of the two most important men in her life.
Ray Proctors dismissal from Wentworth for drinking on duty led to the
revelation of Rebs letter, and stern departmental head Andrew Fry had no
qualms about removing the problematic Officer Ferguson once and for all,
notwithstanding her recent bereavement. However a quick phone call to
Cynthia soon ensured that Reb withdrew all charges, and Joans position was
once more secure. She found therapy for her fathers death both by slapping
the ill-mannered Lexie Patterson and giving her a drastic hair-cut, and
also by talking to the new inmate, anti-nuclear campaigner - and nun -
Anita Selby.
But when Frank Burke set his sights on evening the scores with the hated
officer he did so with real style - by dropping a bookcase on her head!
For a while the women actually believed she was dead, and when she did
emerge suffering from black-outs, the determined Myra set out to dispose
of Joan for good. Myra bashed Lou in the laundry and framed Joan for the
deed - and Joan herself was unable to deny responsibility. But she was now
too ill to care much for the loss of her job: the blow to her head had
caused a dangerous blood clot on the brain, and only emergency surgery
saved her. And for once Joan also had an ally on the inmates side of the
bars: Anita knew full well that Myras set-up was ethically unacceptable,
and her conscience forced her to reveal all to the authorities.
Upon recovery, Joan duly returned to her duties, no doubt filled with new
hope following the announcement that her old foe Bea had been incinerated
in the Barnhurst fire. Joan found not only a new form of companionship in
the form of young officer Terri Malone, but also a new means to wreak
vengeance on Myra: deadly crime queen Ruth Ballinger. Joan was herself
outraged at Ruths (alleged) paedophile rackets, enough so to risk
everything and bash the gloating bitch - and to confess openly to doing
so! But the governor, and even Meg, were so filled with disgust at Ruths
crimes that Joans lapse was allowed to pass without mention. United only
by their hatred of Myra, Joan and Ruth made a deal: Ruths escape in
exchange for Myras death... With Lous help they very nearly succeeded, and
Ruth would have injected Myra with a lethal dose of heroin were it not for
the timely intervention of Meg. Thrown in solitary for her attempt on
Myras life, Ruth knew her time was running out, and threatened to take out
a contract on Joan - but Ruths underworld kingpin husband Arnie wanted her
out of prison living or dead, and sent in a band of guerrillas to free -
or kill - her.
In the ensuing siege Joans heroism and endurance were put to the test, as
both she and officer Joyce Barry were locked away with the inmates and
terrorised by their new captors. Following an unsuccessful attempt to
elude the guerrillas, Joan became their hostage when they embarked on
their escape to the airport. Managing to untie her hands and avail herself
of the gun thoughtfully hidden on the police-rigged getaway van, Joan shot
dead one of the terrorists, and very nearly shot Ruth too as she was
apprehended on the runway.
As a consequence of her valiant efforts against Ruth, Joan found her life
under threat from the mob. She narrowly escaped an arson attack in her own
home, and a car-bomb meant for her and Terri seriously injured a neighbour.
But by passing records of Ruths paedophile crimes to Cynthia at Blackmoor,
where Ruth was now incarcerated, Joan was able to engineer a violent
bashing of her evil foe. Faced with the fact that Ruth would be killed
should any further harm befall Joan, the mob relinquished their efforts to
get Ferguson.
Meanwhile, as a backdrop to all the drama and violence of Ballinger, Joans
friendship with Terri had developed into love. Terri deeply admired the
older womans strength of character and purpose, and despite Joans
misgivings (Terri was once mistakenly identified as her daughter) Terri
moved in with her. Accustomed to a single life, Joan found it hard to
maintain the relationship, not least when Terri made such a faux pas as
opening Joans private mail. But it was Terri who was ultimately to wreck
their union: forced to quit Wentworth after the inmates discovery of her
lesbian relationship with Joan, and ostracised by her parents for her (to
them) unacceptable lifestyle choice, Terri began to question her feelings.
Finding a new job, she was unable to resist the charms of her (male) boss
Barry. Leaving work early one day, Joan chanced to hear the incriminating
sounds ensuing from the bedroom... Although a stoical Joan was initially
willing to turn a blind eye, the relationship rapidly disintegrated, and
Terri finally left without a word, Joan coming home to find her keys
returned and the house empty. This was not quite the end: Joan tried one
last time to have a heart to heart with Terri, but it was soon evident
that the qualities Terri admired most (You taught me that strength was
power) were incompatible with the genuine tenderness and intimacy for
which Joan longed. Even when a tearful Terri made an effort to return to
Joan (having been finally rejected by Barry when he discovered the truth
of her friendship with the older woman), Joan had to make the agonising
decision to shut her lost soul mate out of her life once and for all.
Love had tempered Joans attitude to the women, but now with Terri gone she
was a hollow woman. Caught in a private moment of grief by Lou, Joan
bitterly slapped her across the face - in full view of Meg! But
ever-compassionate, Meg turned a blind eye to the incident, realising only
too well following her own split from Dennis that Joan was genuinely
distraught and not acting out of malice. The departure of Dennis
(following a nifty knee-capping) had in fact allowed Joan to ascend to the
role of union rep: she sensed that it would bring her power, and of course
she did her best to implement it. She was characteristically hostile
towards the latest act of departmental wisdom, the Scared Straight
delinquents scheme; and she did all she could to deny Julie Egberts appeal
to visit her dying mother. However she did also speak up for officer Pat
Slattery when she was suspended, having been wrongly accused of
participating in the double-invoice embezzlement scandal.
Joan had not even dried her tears over Terri when a summons from the shady
Cynthia alerted her to an unwelcome blast from the past: Reb Kean was
being returned to Wentworth, and moreover, Cynthia wanted her dead... Reb
had been bashed at Blackmoor so severely by Cynthia and the inmates that
she suffered a nervous breakdown; transferred to Ingleside, she then
endured twenty-seven counts of electro-convulsive therapy, effectively
wiping her brain. For good measure Cynthia wanted her silenced for good,
but Joan was initially averse, even when a terrified Reb suffered a
flashback to the earlier attempt by Joan to throw her down the solitary
stairs. Opinion was divided: was Reb faking it, or had she genuinely lost
her mind? Joan publicly favoured the former, but secretly approached Reb
in order to instil the false memory that Cynthia was actually Rebs friend.
Finally, the malevolent officer provided the neurotic inmate with a razor
blade, persuading her that suicide was the only option left. Reb duly slit
her wrists... but was found in time by the other women.
Convinced that Reb had indeed lost all (or sufficient) memory of her
ordeal at the hands of Cynthia, Joan turned to face a prisoner at last
worthy of her stature: towering bikie queen Rita Connors. Initially
indifferent to the inmates power struggles, Rita lost no time in advising
both the prisoners and The Freak to keep out of her way. Lou Kelly, now
Top Dog, saw the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone: she first
sowed fresh seeds of hate by blaming Joan for spilling paint on Ritas
precious leather jacket. Then, with Alice Jenkins, she smashed a chair
over the back of Joans head and dragged her unconscious body into the
laundry dryer, intending to frame Rita for the crime. Joan was
mysteriously saved by unknown hands, and set about wreaking havoc for
Rita, slicing up her jacket in front of her horrified eyes. The reprisals
escalated as Ritas gang The Conquerors trashed Joans house; but never one
to be outdone, Joan followed them to their haunt and torched their bikes.
The ensuing chaos provoked a gang warfare, in the course of which Ritas
boyfriend Slasher was killed.
Meanwhile, pressure over the death of escapee May Collins had led to Anns
(temporary) resignation as governor. Her successor Bob Moran, an
ex-military man much in the vein of Jim Fletcher, struck Joan as an
infinite improvement, but he was awake to her power-hungry corruption and
took her firmly down a peg or two. Furious at Bobs harsh regime, Lou
organised first a hunger strike, and then a full-scale riot. Treacherous
femme fatale Eve Wilder had apprised Joan that she had rescued her from
the dryer, and now sought her aid in undermining the reign of the
unbalanced Lou. But the deadly alliance of Joan and Eve never had the
chance to get off the ground, as the phantom lagger was lynched by Lou.
Held hostage by the carnage-maddened inmates, Joan was locked in the
laundry with Rita, still distraught over Slasher; the pair were ordered to
fight to the death, and Rita was hungry for revenge... A long and violent
duel ensued, the officer and inmate battling it out with tenacious fury
until both were too battered to continue. Desperate for blood, Lou set out
to kill Joan herself, holding her at knife-point, but Rita managed to
disarm her as Bob and Meg arrived on the scene with handguns, bringing the
riot to a dramatic end.
Following recent events Joan found it increasingly difficult to put her
life back together. Painfully aware of her frustrating and tragic
loneliness, she eventually found a close male friend, Andrew Hinton, with
whom she enjoyed a round of golf and dinner for two. The relationship was
of course bound to remain that of friends, but when The Conquerors torched
Joans house down in revenge for her role in Slashers death, she moved in
with Andrew. Whilst out for dinner one day, Joan happened across a face
from her past, Lurleen Snook... now operating under the new name Lorelei
Wilkinson. They had first made their acquaintance when Joan worked in
Queensland - but Lorelei had been an inmate at the time. When she came to
be admitted to Wentworth on fraud charges, Lorelei surprised all with her
sympathetic attitude towards the so-called Freak. In time, however, she
had to accept that the once well-disposed and amiable Miss Ferguson had
indeed grown a lot darker and more threatening since her days at Bognor
Road.
Faced with the fact that her home was uninsured (Terri had neglected to
renew the insurance), Joan accepted the offer of wealthy socialite Amy
Ryan to scupper the proposed marriage of doctor/handyman Steve Ryan to
inmate Julie Egbert. Joan enlisted the much-misunderstood Kath Maxwell to
slip Julie a tab of acid, but love prevailed and Steve and Julie succeeded
in marrying before the latter was returned to Barnurst. The feud between
Joan and Rita moved on apace; bent on avenging the loss of her home, Joan
set out to bash Rita in the night, but Rita was awake to her plans and lay
in wait, coshing her and dragging her for a scare to the prison roof with
the assistance of Alice.
Another incident involved a hoax bomb scare in which Joan was embarrassed
in front of the Minister himself. But Joan brought Merle Jones to H Block
as muscle for Kath against Ritas band of Wentworth Warriors - provoked,
Merle was capable of knocking even Rita for six. Meanwhile, Joans
drug-smuggling alliance with Janet Maggot Williams brought her to the
attention of another crime magnate, Harry Parker. In return for help
against The Conquerors, Joan agreed to work with him, but events turned
sour when Janets sister Sandra was caught bringing drugs into the prison.
In order to enforce Joans co-operation, Parker arranged the hit-and-run
death of Andrew, and made threats to get at Andrews daughter too. Bitter
and grieving for her friend, Joan told all to Inspector Grace, who rigged
her with a wire in order to record Parker admitting to his activities.
Joan barely escaped with her life when Parker realised he was being
bugged, but the police came to the rescue, and Grace was sufficiently
grateful to Joan for exposing Parker to neglect to charge her for any of
her own implicit crimes.
Following an abortive attempt on Joans life with a knife, Rita made a more
daring attempt when the woman were on work release at sea. Only the
intervention of Wentworths moral fibre Nancy McCormack foiled Ritas effort
to kill Joan aboard the boat. As the inmates took control of the vessel
Joan rowed ashore for help, followed swiftly by Rita, intent on carrying
out her work. But once ashore the tables were turned, and Joan herself had
the opportunity to dispose of Rita when she lost her footing and found
herself dangling from a cliff. Amazingly, the officer rose above
temptation and actually pulled her nemesis to safety.
Back at Wentworth, Joan stepped up her alliance with Ritas determined
rival Kath. She had also found a new ally among the staff, in the somewhat
obtuse shape of trainee officer Rodney Adams. On Joans instructions,
Rodney paid a late-night visit to Spider Simpsons cell and gave her a
brutal bashing: for a while Spider actually believed she would be able to
prove the officers malicious intent, but as always Joan rode out the
storm. Although clearly despising Rodney, Joan exploited his soft spot for
Kath. A prison shop was set up, and Kath took the opportunity of her
shopping trips with Rod to purchase contraband for her behind-the-counter
sales. Awake to Joan and Kaths collusion, and wrathful for Kaths
un-sportsmanlike use of a lump of lead (at Joans suggestion) in a Top Dog
showdown with Alice Jenkins, Rita found herself at a disadvantage when
Joan set her up for wrecking the shop. With Ann away from the prison, Joan
exerted her full authority by transferring the bikie queen to Blackmoor.
This was not the end of Joans adversary, however: Rita incited a riot and
fire at the top security prison, and was returned to Wentworth along with
many of Blackmoors unsavoury populace - not least the villainous governor
Ernest Craven. A man whose methods made The Freaks seem tame, he conspired
with Joan to remove Ann once and for all. But he went too far when he
arranged the rape of Lorelei (who as a close friend of Rita was fair
enough game in his eyes). Under yet further threat, Lorelei was forced to
lie to the authorities that her rape was a fabrication on the part of Ann
to discredit Ernest: Ann was suspended, and her chair taken by Ernest
himself, before Joan forced him to step down, allowing her to take control
of Wentworth once again.
Ernests subsequent murder at the hands of the traumatised Lorelei left
Joan in sole command; it also gave the ever-ingenious Spider and Vicki
McPherson the means to plot Joans downfall, as they tried to persuade the
impressionable Merle that Ernests ghost was haunting her, and would only
be put to rest by Joans death... But beyond the usual dissent among the
inmates, Joans determination to run the prison her way and her way alone
led her to arrange the transfers of Meg, Marty Jackson, and Joyce Barry to
other prisons. However her soft side prevailed when she personally
delivered a tape-recording of messages from the women to Lorelei, who had
been taken to the psychiatric hospital Ingleside. Recovering sufficiently,
Lorelei was able to tell the full story: with Ernests corruption made
public, the Minister had no option but to reinstate Ann to the
governorship.
More than a little disgruntled at her latest setback, the demoted Joan
accepted a leave of absence and made the agonising decision to quit the
prison service. She thought she had found a worthwhile alternative in a
security company, only to discover that her new boss was none other than
ex-inmate Willie Beecham! Forced to return to work at Wentworth, Joan had
to face the fact that she had lost whatever respect she had previously
coerced from the women. Kath had finally turned against both her and the
dim-witted Rodney, and Joan was forced to resort to her age-old tactics to
inspire a little terror: she gave inmate Lisa Mullins one of her typical
heavy-handed body-searches. The women were not the only ones to lose all
fear of Joan, as a provoked governor Ann actually slapped the dissident
officer across the face for an ill-judged snipe at her private life.
Realising her days were numbered, Joan finally made a deal with her
erstwhile adversary Rita, who had been diagnosed as suffering from non-Hodgkins
lymphoma, a form of cancer from which she had little hope of recovery.
Mindful of her own fathers battle with illness, Joan offered to escort
Rita to the hospital for chemotherapy. Perhaps realising Joans
desperation, Rita told her of a finance company that she had always been
planning to rob. Rapidly persuaded of the swiftness and ease with which
the robbery could be committed, Joan assisted a late-night escape by Rita,
who carried out the crime and stashed the loot in an agreed hiding place.
She was soon recaptured, her health now seemingly in terminal decline.
Joan fretfully bided her time until the news reached her that Rita was
dead. Without that complication, the melancholy officer made her way to
the hidden location and retrieved the loot - only to be arrested as soon
as she attempted to leave the building. She was practically speechless,
but the horrified realisation that the police were remanding her to none
other than Wentworth prompted an appalled reaction. Inducted by Meg, she
found herself increasingly unable to contain her despairing scorn. She was
taken to a specially prepared cell for her own safety, but the women had
already discovered that she was now one of them, and their defiant
chanting of her name inspired her with an almost psychotic egoism:
Ferguson was indeed synonymous with Wentworth. She was however unprepared
for the final surprise: her meal was brought to her cell by none other
than Rita, seemingly back from the dead... I trusted you... a dumbfounded
Joan could barely speak. Undone, she spent a single night as an internee
of Wentworth before the police transferred her to another prison out west,
where she would stand trial for her crime.

The
writing above Is not my own work, I cannot remember where I found all
this, but thanks a bunch, its been very useful and your site is excellent.

Acknowledged as one of the seminal creations of antipodean television culture, the goddess Joan entered the portals of Wentworth Detention
Centre in episode 287 (mid-1982) and was soon ensconced as the undisputed
saviour of 'Prisoner (Cell Block H)', taking the series all the way to its
final, heart-wrenching episode 692 in late 1986.